Giants vs Diamondbacks Prediction, Picks & Odds for Today’s MLB Game

Ryne Nelson has made his way into and out of favor in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ rotation over the last couple of seasons, but he’s never looked closer to a breakout than he has in the last month and a half. Of course, we can’t ever discount an outing where a pitcher looked awful, as it’s bound to happen again at some point, but aside from a disaster at the Great American Ballpark, this 27-year-old has been nearly unhittable since the calendar turned to May and he became a starting pitcher once again.

Nelson had found a way to reverse course in the walks department last month, only to lose those gains in June, but aside from that, he’s looked comfortable in pitching to outs in the air. He’s allowed three home runs in his past three outings, but he’s also limited opponents to just eight hits in all, with just two hits allowed – both solo shots – in that time.

When it’s all said and done, the righty will be vulnerable against power-hitting clubs, but few teams have found a way to generate hits with consistency, especially in Arizona, where fly balls often go to die.

Logan Webb has traditionally been a similar pitcher to Nelson, who’s had an eye towards winning battles with opposing lineups on contact. This season, he’s found a way to bring his strikeout rate back up near 28% which has made him a handful. He continues to generate friendly contact while keeping walks down, but that’s not exactly the best strategy against this free-swinging Arizona team, which puts a ton of balls in play and ranks third in OPS to ground-ball pitchers, four spots higher than where it is in the reverse split.

With San Francisco slumping a bit — missing an injured Matt Chapman and dealing with a tough stretch out of Jung-Hoo Lee, I’d have to tip the scales towards Arizona here at home. Nelson has been tremendous of late, and San Francisco has been markedly better against ground-ball pitchers this season, with a 110-point difference in OPS. On top of that, the Giants are working with a measly .117 Isolated Power and hitting .216 in the last two weeks, which is already a damning number entering a tough power-hitting park.

While Webb has turned himself into something of a strikeout savant, going for six or more in five of his last six outings, I can’t help but wonder if he’ll keep his run going here against Arizona. The Diamondbacks are striking out in under 20% of their plate appearances in the last week, continuing to beat most of the league in this category, and even if they’re unable to run up the score on Webb, they should at least continue getting balls back into play against this strike-throwing veteran.

One man who’s hit ground-ball pitchers very well is Ketel Marte, who is .256 in the split with 30 total bases to rank third on the team. He’s got a .250 Expected Batting Average versus Webb in his career, he’s on fire with a .405 average in his last 10 games, and he also owns a massive edge in the platoon splits, hitting .329 against righties and .250 versus lefties.